Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

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First Steps into Space: Projects Mercury and Gemini
Document I-50
Document Title: Al Nagy, NASA, to George Low, NASA, 11 December 1961.
Source: Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History
Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC.
Document I-51
Document Title: D. Brainerd Holmes, Director of Manned Space Flight Programs,
NASA, Memorandum for Associate Administrator, NASA, “Naming Mercury-Mark
II Project,” 16 December 1961.
Source: Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History
Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC.
In December 1961 NASA officials began considering what to call the new program planned
to follow Mercury. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., NASA’s Associate Administrator, wanted to run
a competition to name the proposed Mercury Mark II, and offered a token reward of a bottle
of good Scotch whiskey to the person suggesting the name finally accepted. In addition to
others who recommended the name, Alex P. Nagy, an engineer in NASA’s Office of Manned
Space Flight, proposed “Gemini,” a reference to classical mythology and quite appropriate for
the two-astronaut spacecraft. NASA Headquarters officials selected Gemini from a host of